The present invention relates to an electrophotographic copying machine and, more particularly, to a feeding device for feeding copy paper to a transfer portion or position of a photoreceptor.
An electrophotographic copying machine produces on a photoreceptor an electrostatic latent image corresponding to a pattern image of a document such as a manuscript or book to be copied. Toner particles are electrostatically attracted to the latent image, so that the latent image becomes visible as a toner image. The toner image is transferred onto the copy paper via a transfer corona discharger.
Conventionally, when the copy paper is close to the photoreceptor to transfer the toner image onto the copy paper, the copy paper may be bent so that the surface of the copy paper is close to the surface of the drum carrying the photoreceptor. That is, the plane of the surface of the copy paper close to the photoreceptor cannot include the tangent line at the surface of the photoreceptor because the respective elements of the conventional paper feeding devices for forwarding the copy paper near the surface of the photoreceptor are positioned so as to curve the copy paper during the traverse.
When the copy paper is so thin that it is flexible, such a copy paper can be brought to the surface of the photoreceptor, smoothly. However, when the copy paper is so thick that it is not flexible but instead very stiff, such a copy paper may possibly jam in the copy paper feeding device since it is difficult to bend such a copy paper into a smooth curve.
Therefore, it is desired to provide an improved paper feeding device for feeding any kind of copy paper regardless of thickness.